Random Crashes with Mods?

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FFCecil
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Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by FFCecil »

Anyone have any random crashes using the Star Trek 1.4a mod and I have a few others like the sound & music mod and upgraded planets pictures.

I played 1 game when I first started and didn't get a single crash now with the mods I randomly crash like once an hour or more.

Any ideas how to fix it.. I really like the Star Trek mods and music but I hate crashing in games .. especially this one cause it takes forever to load up on my computer.

[:D]
Edit: Been playing a couple hours since my last post below and no crash. So it seems something in the Sound GFX star trek mod or the high res planets mod is causing the random crashes on my computer. I did keep in the message alert from the sound mod so it's not that :) That other alert is annoying with pirates and wars.

[:(] Alt + Tabbed back to my game and about 2 minutes later.. boom crash to desktop. Hopefully was just an Alt Tab problem.
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Igard
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Igard »

Sorry to hear this, FFCecil. Welcome to the forum.

I know for certain that the design.txt file causes issues. Make sure you don't have a design.txt file in your customization/Star Trek folder.

There really shouldn't be anything else with the mod that causes crashes.

The planets mod uses a great deal more memory than the vanilla ones. Try removing that, or re-install Distant Worlds to remove all the texture and sound replacements.

What's your systems specs? Have you updated your graphics and sound drivers?


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tjhkkr
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by tjhkkr »

These mods are great... HOWEVER, many of them use sizes above what is recommended by the game customization specs... many ships are 500 x 500 pixels in size. I always takes these modes and adjust the ship sizes to 200 x 200. It makes me sad to do so, since many of these have extraordinary art work, but that reduction in size greatly reduces the size of each image. If you are having memory issues, you can try that.
The other things is if the ABEND you are getting is from a draw command (usually when it crashes, it will tell you why), it could be the ship graphic itself has something the code does not like. This has been the biggest issue I have had with mods. Most of Igard's (I think trek 1.4a is his) stuff has been stable on my computer.
Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.
FFCecil
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by FFCecil »

ORIGINAL: Igard

There really shouldn't be anything else with the mod that causes crashes.

The planets mod uses a great deal more memory than the vanilla ones. Try removing that, or re-install Distant Worlds to remove all the texture and sound replacements.

What's your systems specs? Have you updated your graphics and sound drivers?

I did a search for crash after I posted.. and others were mentioning the Sound and GFX mods seemed to cause crashes.. I removed the extra sound GFX mod for star trek and and the planets mod. I don't have the design.txt in my star trek folder.

My computer not that powerful anymore :) Only a 2.5g with 1g ram and FX5600 nvidia. I played a 400 star system game with no mods all the way thru with no crashes.. The save times were too slow for me still around 3 to 5 minutes so I'm trying a tiny galaxy now..

Anyway I doubt it's your Star Trek mod. People that posted on crashes said that they had no crahes with just the vanilla Star Trek mod. I haven't had time to play a game yet since I removed the other stuff.. I'll see how it goes.
ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

The other things is if the ABEND you are getting is from a draw command (usually when it crashes, it will tell you why), it could be the ship graphic itself has something the code does not like. This has been the biggest issue I have had with mods. Most of Igard's (I think trek 1.4a is his) stuff has been stable on my computer.

I haven't been getting any reports which is aggravating. Just a very quick crash to desktop. All completely random. Sometimes I just be scrolling around. Or zooming in and out and sometime when I clicked on technology button. It's probably the same thing crashing it but I just happen to be doing those things at the time.
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Igard
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Igard »

I wouldn't recommend using the planets mod with only 1GB of RAM. The Star Trek sound mod may be playable though.

As for TRSE Star Trek and Archer Era Star Trek mods, I don't think these will run very well at all.[:(]

I may one day get around to making a low res version, but for now, I need a break from it. If you have the motivation and the time, you could always begin resizing the ships like tjhkkr talked about. I've found the fastest and easiest program to use to resize images is Microsoft's Paint.NET.

Let me know how it goes.
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tjhkkr
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by tjhkkr »

Hanging it up for a while? [X(]
Cannot say I blame you; you have been at this steady for a long time. [8D]

I am hoping there will be a version of the game with more modifiable parts soon, but we shall see. The forums have been pretty quiet from a Matrix/CodeForce perspective.
Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.
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Simulation01
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Simulation01 »

Are you getting any errors when you immediately start up the game?  Are there any pop up warning messages before your game crashes?  Do you have problems with any other mod?  Have you modified the mod in any way?
"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved Earth and Heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will." -Tennyson
FFCecil
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by FFCecil »

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

Are you getting any errors when you immediately start up the game?  Are there any pop up warning messages before your game crashes?  Do you have problems with any other mod?  Have you modified the mod in any way?

No, the game start up fine. No warnings.. just one second I'm in the game and the next I'm staring at the desktop. I used lot's of different mods that I posted in first post. I removed the GFX and Planets mod and I don't get as many crashes.. Sometimes I go for hours now without a crash. So must be the ship resolutions like was mentioned above. Not sure why that would be the problem. I don't think it's a memory issue and the performance of the game is pretty good. Just gets slow to save the mid to late game.
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Igard
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Igard »

ORIGINAL: FFCecil

No, the game start up fine. No warnings.. just one second I'm in the game and the next I'm staring at the desktop. I used lot's of different mods that I posted in first post. I removed the GFX and Planets mod and I don't get as many crashes.. Sometimes I go for hours now without a crash. So must be the ship resolutions like was mentioned above. Not sure why that would be the problem. I don't think it's a memory issue and the performance of the game is pretty good. Just gets slow to save the mid to late game.

I tend to think that memory is the issue here, FFCecil. The game is loading the larger size images, that's why it takes so long to load games. Once these are loaded, the game is running with far less memory resources free and eventually it's just crashing out. Have you checked with the task manager to see how much memory is in use?
FFCecil
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by FFCecil »

Well I reinstalled new 1.06 and just put the Star Trek 1.4a mod, music pack, and changed the message alert sound. Played well for about 2 hours but it did still crash again :(

It's wierd.. Sometimes I can play for hours and no crash and other times it will crash within 10 minutes. I think I'll try to reduce ship sizes, if it doesn't take that long and see if that helps.
FFCecil
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by FFCecil »

Hi Igard,

Could you answer a couple quick questions for me. 

In your ship images foldier for like Family0 there are _destroyer type names.. etc..  are those just alternate ships I could use if I replace the destroyer.png with that one or are those actually used in game with that naming scheme? 

Also do you know what the Mil1a.png, Mil1b, etc.. are in the main ship folder? 

Is there a way to get ship images to show up to select when designing a ship that isn't already assigned specifically like in that drop down box that shows all the races ship images..  Can I get others to show up there?

I resized them all to 200*200..  Gonna see if they work.  Also I noticed the official ship sizes for ships like capital and cruiser and I think even destroyer are 250*250.  But the freighters go down to 100*100 even.  So I guess I could use a 250*250 size.

I wonder if I reduced them all to 100*100 if I could play a standard map. The 400*400 game I played first with Vanilla 1.06 just took way too long to save towards the mid to end game. Might not affect how fast it saves though?

FFCecil
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Igard
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Igard »

ORIGINAL: FFCecil


In your ship images foldier for like Family0 there are _destroyer type names.. etc..  are those just alternate ships I could use if I replace the destroyer.png with that one or are those actually used in game with that naming scheme? 

Those are just alternative options. Simply rename them if you want to use them.
Also do you know what the Mil1a.png, Mil1b, etc.. are in the main ship folder? 

Those are also alternative ships. As above, rename and replace if you want to use them.
Is there a way to get ship images to show up to select when designing a ship that isn't already assigned specifically like in that drop down box that shows all the races ship images..  Can I get others to show up there?

You should be able to select any ship image from that drop down box. Careful to make sure you're not editing a design that already exists. To edit an existing design you should use 'copy as new' from the design screen.
I resized them all to 200*200..  Gonna see if they work.  Also I noticed the official ship sizes for ships like capital and cruiser and I think even destroyer are 250*250.  But the freighters go down to 100*100 even.  So I guess I could use a 250*250 size.

Great stuff! It doesn't matter what size you make the ships. Distant Worlds will use them.
I wonder if I reduced them all to 100*100 if I could play a standard map. The 400*400 game I played first with Vanilla 1.06 just took way too long to save towards the mid to end game. Might not affect how fast it saves though?

Each of the vanilla shipsets is just under 1MB so if you try to keep the shipsets to that size, the mod should run just the same as vanilla. Making them any smaller might not necessarily yield results because it's also loading sounds and all the other graphics as well.

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Simulation01
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RE: Random Crashes with Mods?

Post by Simulation01 »

I know I had a problem once( only once lol [;)] )....I downloaded the pre release beta for 1.06 I think it was, and when a revised version came out I tried to patch it, but it didn't work right and it was crashing like it sounds yours is doing...  I uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times, but when uninstalling it didn't remove all of the files for the game...I had to go and manually hunt them down and remove them..then I reinstalled the game and patched to the latest versions and voila...no problems...


One other thing I have noticed....kinda as an aside....If you load a custom theme and you set up a game with empire players that you set up...if you do not get rid of those before loading another theme it will cause some error messages....


Edit Info:
I am using images that I modified that are not at the recommended size and so far I am not having any problems.....although ( and I'm not bragging) I have 3gigs of RAM....
"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved Earth and Heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will." -Tennyson
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